Any discussion of the prior art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such prior art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
It is well known that infection may be transmitted from one person to another by direct contact, by inhalation of air borne infectious particles, or by contact with infectious fluids. Infection is also commonly transmitted indirectly for example by contact with a surface that has itself become infected by contact with an infected person, or with infected airborne particles, or fluids.
For example hospital taps are a notorious for their potential to transmit infection and this has been to some extent alleviated by the use of elbow lever taps. But inside hospitals microbial agents such as bacteria, spores, viruses and fungi can also be indirectly transmitted by staff handling instruments, instrument sterilizing baths, door handles, and by touching many other surfaces. Both inside and outside of hospitals infections are spread via contact with toilet cubicle surfaces, toilet flushing buttons/levers, toilet doorhandles, telephone handsets, lift buttons, furniture and building surfaces, documents, and utensils to name but a few of countless examples. Surfaces of all of these typically harbour significant and rapidly growing colonies of microbes, moulds and the like. The invention also extends to include surfaces on which slimes and the like may harbour microbes such as tubing, surfaces in water treatment plants and the like and tubing.
The risk of infection from such like surfaces is reduced by regular cleaning with disinfectant solutions. However it is not practical to wipe such surfaces sufficiently often to provide effective disinfection.
No disinfectants for application to surfaces have been sufficiently durable to maintain a biostatic or biocidal surface for long periods in use. Attempts to incorporate disinfectants into solid articles for slow release have either not proven sufficiently durable, or have not been sufficiently effective or have been too toxic or expensive and none has been commercially successful.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome or ameliorate at least one of the disadvantages of the prior art, or to provide a useful alternative.